Means for forming cardboard and similar cartons or containers



June 21, 1932.

H. M. WARE MEANS FOR FORMING CARDBOARD AND SIMILAR CARTONS OR CONTAINERSFiled Jan. 28, 1930 (fwwzr; #021- MW Patented June 21, 1932 Umrao STATESPATENT OFFICE HERBERT AGLEAN W RE; on sou'rn oRoYnoN, ENGLAND, AssIGNoRTO Asso- CIATEID ICE & DAIRIES LIMITED, F MANCHESTER, ENGLAND, ACORPORATION or GREAT BRITAIN I MEANS FOR FORMING CARDBOARD-AND SIMILARCARTONS OR CONTAINERS Application filed January 28, 1930,Seria1No;;4;24,( )43,and in Great Britain February 11,1929.

My invention has referencetomachines or appliances for the production oftubular an; ticles such as the bodies of cardboard or simi;

lar cartons for containing milk and other liquids, bya method that isknown per se,-and

involves the use of a mandril or former corresponding to the shape ofthetube to be made, and of a tool comprisinga system of jaws or gripswhich, by and during a movement of the said tool relatively to the.mandril wrap container-bodies with glued lap joints is described inwhich there are a number of forming mandrils arranged upon anintermittently-rotating turret and blanks are mechani cally fed one at atime from the bottom of a magazine or hopper, to one. ofthe mandrils andan underside edge of the said blank'is mechanically served with liquidglue during the feed movement. Each of the mandrils has associated withit, a clamp bar for applying pressure to the lap joint produced by theaction of the wrapping tools and mechanism is employed to maintain thatpressure whilst the mandril turret is being rotated, through a number ofsteps, towards another part of the machine where a bottom is insertedinto the formed and jointed body; The saidspecifi cation states that thepurpose of so maintaining pressure on the joint, anddelaying thepresentation of each body to thebottoming mechanism, is to give the glueof the, joint time to thoroughly dry before therj'ointing pressure isrelieved. I V

In any machine such as that above referred to that is designed tomechanically feed blanks from a hopper or the like and to apply liquidadhesive to an edge of the blank during such feed, the problem ofthoroughly drying the adhesive before jointing pressure. is relieved,must involve either considerable complication in the structure of themachine or the loss of considerable time in drying the adhesive underpressure, and a corresponding slow production rate, but the presentinvention proposes todeal with the drying prob.

lem by a machine that enables the rapid production of lap-jointedcontainer bodies from blanks that have been gummed, and the gum allowedto sufliciently dry, or become tacky, before being'fed into the machine,so that only the application of a momentary pressure is needed to make asound and permanent joint. I The invention also proposes to provide asimple vand relatively inexpensive machine for producing lap-jointedcontainer-bodies which is capable of being easily operated by persons,such as dairymen or the like, possessing no special mechanical skill orknowledge, and, which will perform the whole sequence of the operationsinvolved in the making of lap-jointed container-bodies under the controlof a single starting and stopping pedal or lever, by the appropriatemanipulation of which the operative or attendant is enabled to regulateor determine the time over which pressureis applied to the joint overlapto suit the nature or condition of the gum or adhesive.

- In the machine or appliance which consti tutes the said invention, asingle stationary mandril or former is associated with trays-orequivalent expedients adapted so to locate a hand-fed blank (one edge ofwhich has previouslyfbeen gummed or served with adhesive) that, on thesaid blank being wrapped upon the mandril by the action of a wrappingtool of the spring-jaw type, its gummed edge is constrained to over-lapun-gummed edge preliminary to .thecompletion of the joint by pressure. vi

' The machine also comprises means for clamping the blank to the mandrilwhilst the wrapping tools are in motion, and in the preferredconstruction, the moving tools for performing the blank-clamping,wrapping and jointing operations are brought into and taken out ofaction in the prescribed sequence by pneumatically: orhydraulicallyoperated mechanism adapted to be controlled by a singlestop and start pedal or lever so that one operator may readily attendboth to the feeding of the blanks and the removal of the finished tubesor bodies and in addition to being able to regulate or determine theduration of the pressure on the joint overlap.

Figure 1 of the accompanying drawing shows a sectional elevation and HFigure 2 a front view of a combined bodyforming and j oint-sealingmachine constructed in accordance with an application of my inventionand adapted for the production of lap-jointed conoidal carton-bodies inwhich the making of the joint between overlapping edges of the materialis provided for the gumming of one of the said edges before theblank isintroduced into the machine. I

In this machine, the blank-gripping, bodyforming, and joint-sealingtools are successively brought into operation by pneumati Cally orhydraulically-actuated mechanism under the control of a edal which isadapted to be worked by the operative who also at= tends to the feedingof the body blanks into the machine and the removal of the finishedbodies. 7

The said machine comprises a rigid framemember or pedestal a carrying aconoidal mandril Z) which constitutes the fixed element of thebody-forming and joint-sealing tools and has its smaller end resented tothe front to enable withdrawal of the finished bodies, and this mandrilis associated with a blankgripping bar or lever c, with a blank-wrapping tool (l, and with a joint sealing res'sure bare, all of whicharepower operate The wrapping tool d is mounted on a reciprocatingplunger (2 suitably guided in the frame and adapted to be lifted by thepower displacement of a ram] which works in a power cylinder 7" locatedat the base of the machine and is controlled by a valve 9 whose piston gis connected directly with a foot pedal 72.. Return movement of thewrapping tool is provided for by a system of springs such as e 7 Thejoint-sealing pressure bar (which may be heated by electrical or otheragen y) is carried by a suitably-guided plunger e in a plane parallelwith the centre-line of the mandril and is adapted tobe depressed by theram e of a power-cylinder e which is arranged at the head of the machineand has the piston e of its control valve interconnected with the ram 7of the lower power-cylinder f by a rod 6 which is coupled to a pair ofed b a forked levers e 6 adapted to be trip projection f fixed to theram e va ve chambers pertaining to the upper and lower cylinders areassociated with a system of power-pipes and exhaust pipes as shown andsprings such as e are provided for liiting the upper ram and returningthe sealing bar to its normal position after the power has been out offfrom the u per cylinder at the end of each cycle of operations.

The blank-gripping bar 0 is arranged below the mandril and in the planeof the mandril centre-line and is interconnected with the ram fbylinking the same to a lever i having arollered end. 2' adapted tocontact with the face of the wrapping-tool plunger 611 which is formedwith a cam at d whereby, at the commencement of each working stroke ofthe min f, the lever i is tripped and the grip-' ping bar brought intoaction in advance of thelefiective movement of the body-wrapping too rThe moving wrapping tool consists of a series of pairs of arcuate springjaws or limbs (i arranged to roduce a row of suitably-spaced circularips or grips of differing diameters adapted respectively to engage withand circumferentially conform to different parts of the fixed mandril b.The shanks dof the spring jaws are fi'x'edto the plunger d, but theirother and free ends are extended into outwardly inclined tongues dwhich, as the tool is lifted by the ram f, eo-act with the stationarymandril for opening or expanding the jaws as hereinafter explained inthe description of the operation of the machine. The free ends of thejaws normally are separated suflicientl'y to provide clearance below themandril for the blank-gripping tool a to operate in.

Trays j, j, are fixed to the frame below and on opposite sides of themandril for supporting the body blanks in appropriate relation to thesaid mandril and to the moving blank-gripping and wrapping tool at thecommencement of the operation. The gripping tool 0 operates in the spacebetween the inner edges of the trays.

At the commencement of each sequence of operations, the various movingparts of the machine occupy the positions shown in the drawings and theoperator places a blank (one e go of which has previously been gammed onthe opposite side) upon the locating trays and between theblank-gripping tool 0 and the fixed mandril b. Depression of theeontrohpedal operates the valveiston g for admitting fluid pressure tothe ower power-cylinder f and starting the working stroke of the ram f,the upper cylinder being meanwhile cut off from power. The cam d on theplunger 03 immediately acts on the lever z, and so displaces the bar 0as to enact the initial gripping of the middle of the blank between thesaid tool 0 and the underside of the Inandril b, and thereaftermaintains such gri until the Wrapping tool 4 is efl'ective for c ippingthe blank around the mandril and preventing dislocation of the materialin relation to the joint-sealing tool.

The continued lift of the ram and plunger 7, (i brings the spring jawsof the wrapping tool into operation for starting the wrapping of theblank around the mandril and as their tongue extensions (1 encounter theresistance of the mandril, the said jaws are opened out or expandeduntil they have been lifted past the maximum diameter of the saidmandril, whereupon the jaws automatically contract or close to completethe wrapping of the blank tube-wise around the mandril and to make theungummed edge on one side of the blank over-lap the gummed edge on theother side in a plane below the joint-sealing tool 6. The spring jawsthen circumferentially grip the material and preserve its tubularformation whilst the joint is being pressure-sealed.

As soon as the tool d is gripping the tube on the mandril, the trip f onthe plunger d acts upon the lever e which so shifts the control-valve 6*of the upper power cylinder as to admit fluid pressure to the latter andbring about depression of the sealing tool 6 which compresses the gummedjoint of the formed tube between itself and the mandril, and may at thesame time apply heat to the joint. At this stage, and after sufficientpressure has been applied properly to seal the joint, the operatorreleases the foot-pedal which, under the action of its return spring,shifts the valve g of the lower power cylinder to place the latter inconnection with exhaust and allow the plunger d and wrapping tool d tobe retracted by their return-springs, whilst on completion of the returnstroke of the said plunger, the trips 7 act upon the lever e to shiftthe valve 6 of the upper cylinder for placing the said cylinder inconnection with exhaust. That is to say, the power remains on the uppercylinder during the. whole of the retractive stroke of the tool 61 sothat the pressure of the tool e on the oint side of the tube ismaintained, and the said tube is definitely clamped to the mandril untilthe wrapping-tool jaws have completely disengaged, which prevents thefinished tube being dragged off the mandril, or being.

otherwise dislocated, by the friction of the disengaging wrapping jaws.As soon, however, as the jaws are retracted clear of the mandril thecutting off of the upper-cylinder power by the trip gear allows the tool6 to be lifted and at or about the same time, the cam 03 on the plungerd permits the gripping bar a to drop through the clearance between theends of the wrapping jaws and allow the finished tube to be withdrawnfrom the mandril.

It is obvious that by suitably modifying the shapes of the mandril andwrapping-tool jaws, a machine such as above described may be adapted forproducing cylindrical cartonbodies and tubes, and that given asuificiently heated joint sealing tool, it may be used for making or/andsealing joints between the over-lapping edges of waxed orsimilarlytreated material.

Having described my invention, what I claim and desire to secure byLetters Patent 1. A machine for producing lap-jointed tubes, such ascarton bodies from blanks, the sealing edges of which have been ummedpreviously to the blanks being fed y hand to the machine, comprising astationary man dril or former corresponding to the shape of the cartonto be made, a tray element 1n which the blank for forming a carton isinitially placed by hand for forming around the mandril, saidtrayelement being asymetrically arranged relatively to the mandril so asto ensure that the edges of the blank overlap in correct relationship, apivoted bar which is operable to hold the blank in contact with theunderside of the mandril, a series of spring jaws which are operable towrap the so-gripped blank around the mandril and cause the edges of theblank to overlap each other and a member disposed on the upper side ofthe mandril which is operable to seal the oint.

2. A machine as claimed in claim 1 where in said tray element compriseslaterally separated parts and the said spring jaws and the said pivotedmember are arranged to operate within the clearance between such parts.

3. A machine as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said spring jaws and thesaid member for sealing the joint of the formed blank are slidablymounted on the machine frame and fluid pressure means are provided andadapted to operatethese parts in their described sequence, said fluidpressure means being under the control of a foot pedal or lever.

4. A machine according to claim 1 wherein the spring jaws are slidablymounted on the machine frame and means are associated with means formoving said spring jaws into and out of operative association with themandril adapted to operate the said pivoted blank clamping member at thebeginning and end of each sequence of said movements of the spring jaws.

In witness whereof I afiix my signature.

HERBERT MACLEAN WARE.

